Tag: Mohali

Harpreet Singh Bajwa

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Harpreet Singh Bajwa, A young animal lover fulfilling the dreams of horse-riding enthusiasts.

Horses are considered to be man’s favourite animal from the very beginning. In ancient times, horses were the only means of transportation. Even today, there are many animal lovers who consider animals as an important part of their lives.

This is the story of one such animal lover, Harpreet Singh Bajwa, who has made his own Horse- Farm due to his love for animals.

Harpreet Bajwa, a resident of Kharar near Mohali in Punjab, belonging to the Military family, was practicing horse riding from the age of 10-11 years. Harpreet’s grandfather and father have served the country in Military and practiced horse riding there. Harpreet was also fond of horse-riding since childhood.

After studying his B.Com and being in a military family, he was getting trained for the job in Military with the intention of serving the country. In the meantime he also learned horse riding. But for some reason, he did not succeed for Military and started working in Delhi and Mohali for 10-12 years.

During the course of a job, we have to do things that our heart does not allow. So I have always wanted to do something different and to my liking. – Harpreet Singh Bajwa

With horse riding at a young age and almost 20 years of experience in equestrianism, Harpreet wanted to turn his hobby into a reality.

As it is said, the passion of horses is very expensive. This is why many horse enthusiasts maintain a distance from this occupation, due to higher costs. Similarly, being from an ordinary family, Harpreet could not do more, but with the money he saved during his tenure, he decided to start a horse farm.

I have always wanted to do something that would satisfy my mind. Because of my love for horses and horse riding, I decided to open a farm for horses. – Harpreet Singh Bajwa

There are several areas that require horse riding to get involved. For this purpose, he took land on lease. It costs him around Rs 7-8 lakh to start the farm. He named this farm as DKPS. Harpreet Singh Bajwa named this school after his parents’ name- Davinder Kaur and Parkash Singh. In this farm, he had horses of the Throw bread Breed. Throw bread Breed is a breed of horses that is considered the best for racing.

Currently he have 5 mares and 1 horse in the farm. Earlier, interested ones in horse-riding came up to his farm, which included children and the elders. The fees for horse riding in this farm is also low, which is why a number of people come to learn horse-riding even today.

Equestrian enthusiasts at my farm are from age 7 to age 50. Babbu Maan, a famous Punjabi singer, usually comes for horse-riding at my farm. – Harpreet Singh Bajwa

Harpreet also prepares his school children to participate in various horse racing competitions. His school children have participated in many regional and state level competitions and have won many awards.

A horse is such an animal that has its own heart and mind. The horse-rider explains the horse with his gestures. We teach all of these skills to our horse-riders at our school. – Harpreet Singh Bajwa

Harpreet’s decision to open a horse school is a very commendable decision, as those who cannot afford to spend a lot of money learning horse riding can fulfill their wish through DKPS.

Future Planning

Harpreet wants to create a better and healthier generation by training horse-riding.

Message
“We should never let our passions die. Hard work has to be done in everything. Young people should work hard to make themselves and their parents’ dreams come true and not to get intoxicated with drugs.”

Mohan Singh

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Story of a Man, Who United With His True Childhood Passion of Farming after Retirement

Passion is an amazing emotion or we can say an oomph factor which can lead a person in any direction he wants. And by coming in account with this 64 year-old-man, Mohan Singh, every positive though about passion seems true. From the last 2 years this retired man, Mohan Singh, is spending his every single moment to fulfil his childhood passion of farming.

After serving BCAM for more than three decades, Mohan Singh finally got retired in 2015 as a GM (General Manager) from the organization, and then he decided to step in the soil to accomplish those dreams that was left undone and buried somewhere in the back of his heart.
Coming from an educated background where his father was in military, Mohan Singh was never confined to career choices, he had the freedom to follow his dreams. In his childhood years, Mohan Singh got so much influenced towards farming that he himself was not aware of.

While growing up, Mohan Singh, often use to visit his small 5 acres family farm where his family use to grow wheat, paddy and some seasonal veggies for home consumption. But as he grew up, his life got more complex, confined between limited space of education system, job responsibility and later on family responsibilities.

After getting retired, in 2015, Mohan Singh joined a part time job as a consultant in Prakash Iron Foundry, Agra; he use to visit there once or twice a month. In the same year, 2015, he took his first step towards his childhood desire and he started preparing nursery of black onion and chilli.

He began with 100 soil beds, and slowly expanded the area up to 200 soil beds and then he expanded it in 1 acre with 1000 soil beds. He started marketing his products through on-road stalls. He got good response in return which inspired him to start preparing vegetable nursery also. To take his venture up to the next level he started contract farming with a person in which he started growing late variety of chilli through which he earned more profit.

Black onion is the main crop which fetched him great profit than the older variety of onions because it decays at slower rate due to which its storage life is increased. With the help of few worker he manages his whole farm and also work as a consultant with Prakash Iron Foundry. He has all the modern implements like tractor, harrow, tiller, and leveller at his farm.

Though, Mohan Singh’s journey in farming started a while ago, but his selection for quality seeds and standardise schedule for compost lead him to great success and satisfaction.

Currently Mohan Singh is living a happy farmer life in his village Devinagar Abrawan of Mohali and expanding his reach in the agriculture sector to purse sustainable agriculture in the future.

For Mohan Singh, living with his wife, two well settled sons (one is veterinary doctor and another is working successfully in the electronics field), their wives and children, farming was never a burden, he enjoys farming. He also rears 3 Murrah Buffaloes for house hold purpose and his son who is a veterinary doctor helps him taking care of them.

Message:
“Farmers should adapt new environment friendly technologies and join groups which can help them succeed in agriculture sector, rather than depending upon the subsidy. Farmer should also adopt modern farming allied activities along with crop cultivation if they want to earn double benefit and manage their finances at the time of crop loss.”

This aged retired man is an icon for millions of youth, who are running behind the glittering life of city.

Ravi Sharma

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Tailor Turned Beekeeper Creating a Medicinal Powerhouse by Expanding Apiculture

Apiculture is rising industry which is not only attracting the people of agrarian society but also people from other different communities because of the future gain. One such a person who is creating a medicinal powerhouse in his village by expanding apiculture is Ravi Sharma.

Starting from 1978, till 1992, Ravi Sharma used to tailor the clothes and also guide 10 other men under him, in the same profession in his small village Gudana of district Mohali. His tailoring business was going well in a small village shop until he visited Rajpura, Patiala and met Dr. Walia (Agri Inspector).

For Ravi Sharma, Dr. Walia acted as a pathfinder towards beekeeping; he was the one who inspired Ravi Sharma towards beekeeping and helped him in adopting it smoothly.

In the beginning, Mr. Sharma got 50% subsidy and himself he invested Rs. 5700 on 5 honeybee boxes, from which he obtained 1 ½ quintal honey and earned good profit. First earning encouraged Ravi Sharma to expand his work to 100 honeybee boxes and this is how he switched to beekeeping and dropped the profession of tailoring completely in 1994.

Visit to Rewari, Haryana in 1997 in an agricultural event, boosted up Mr. Sharma’s fascination towards beekeeping and then he decided to increase the number of honeybee boxes. Now, the bee boxes number varies from 350-400 in his farm.

In 2000, Mr. Ravi also gave a try to dairy farming with 15 cows, but it was not as successful as beekeeping. Due to labour problem, he has to end it. Now he has only 4 HF breed cows and one Murrah buffalo for home purpose and sometimes he also sells their milk in the market. In the meanwhile, beekeeping work was going smooth.

But the journey towards successful beekeeping was not that velvety. In 2007-08, a mite attacked was encountered in his beehives colonies due to which only 35 honeybee boxes were left unaffected and the rest were destroyed. This incident completely shattered the beekeeping business of Ravi Sharma.

But this fall made Mr. Ravi stronger and he rose more powerfully and established his honeybee farm successfully within a short span of time. After seeing his success many other people consulted him to start their own beekeeping business. He started distributing 20-30 honeybee boxes to his relatives and friends also and in this way he created a medicinal powerhouse.

“Once there also came a time when honeybee boxes count reached up-to 4000, and all those people who owned it, started beekeeping after seeing my success in beekeeping venture.”

Today, Ravi Madhu Makhi Farm has two workers for managing the bee farm work. Marketing is also smooth, as Ravi Sharma has a tie-up with a person who buys all the honey from him, and sometimes Ravi Sharma also sells 4-5 quintal of honey on the roadside shop near Anandpur Sahib from where he earns well.

Beekeeping is the only source of income for Ravi Sharma through which he is supporting his family of 6 members, which includes wife, mother, two daughters, and a son.

“My wife- Mrs. Gyan Devi, was the main supporting pillar in my beginning beekeeping years. Without her, I would not have reached this level in my life.”

Currently, honey and bee wax are the two main product of Ravi Madhumakhi Farm.

Future Plan:
Till now I have expanded the beekeeping work in my village and few relatives only, but in future, I want to expand beekeeping to a much larger area.

Message:
“A person should do his work with complete dedication and include these three words in his efforts “Imaandaari (Honesty), Gyan (Knowledge), Dhyan (Care)” then only he can achieve what he wants.”

Because of Mr. Ravi’s effort today Gudana village has become a powerhouse for honey production and he will keep his work in progress to make beekeeping more impactful business in the future also.

Amarjit Singh

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Kisan Junction- Story of A Man Who Quit His Job and Turned Into Emerging Khetipreneur through Diversified Farming

These days everyone dreams of a good profession followed by a nice decent job, and why not? We were always told that happiness and satisfaction in life are always achieved by doing a good professional job in the service sector. There are very few people who want to put their hands in the soil and make a livelihood out of it. However, there is a man who chose the soil over his job and is successfully practicing natural farming.

Mr. Amarjit Singh is a khetipreneur, who is actively involved in organic farming, dairy farming and is also running a restaurant business with the name Kisan Junction in Gharuan. He started farming in 2007, at that time he didn’t have any concrete plan in the mind, he just had the confidence of making difference in his own life.

Before starting farming, Amarjit Singh went to PAU for training and also visited different states, where he observed different agriculture practices being followed by farmers in producing the natural food without any chemicals. He also went to Calicut, Kerala for turmeric cultivation and processing training.

From his state visits and training, he came to know that there is a lot of adulteration in the food products that we consume daily. And after getting the insight, he decided of farming by using the natural method only, so that he can produce food without any contamination. From the last two years, he is only using organic manure in his farm and no fertilizers and pesticides. He is so much passionate about farming that he has taken 30 acres of land on lease for farming purpose and himself he has 1.5 acres of land only. He grows sugarcane, wheat, paddy, turmeric, mango, watermelon, spices, herbal plants and other seasonal vegetables in his farm.

Dr. Ramandeep Singh was one of the main personalities in PAU, from which Amarjit Singh got inspired and decided of giving his life a new turn. And it was Dr. Ramandeep Singh only who gave the concept of On-Farm-Market to him on which Kisan Junction is based. Today, Amarjit Singh is running Kisan Junction which is located just along with his farms on the Chandigarh-Ludhiana state highway. The main motive of Kisan Junction was to help farmers get their processed products reach the market through his shop. He initiated in 2007 and it took him 9 years to establish his own on-farm-market. From the last year, he has also opened a restaurant on the same land with the same name Kisan Junction- from Farm to Fork.

Amarjit Singh is just 10th passed by qualification, and today at the age of 45 he has finally recognized that what he is meant for and what he should do. So, to guide the rest of the farmers like him, he has formed a group called Shri Dhanna bhagat Farmers Club in Gharuan. He is the president of this group and apart from farming; he also takes out time for the group meetings. They have total 18 members in their group, and the main function of their group is to discuss that which type seeds they should use or buy, modern ways to implement farming and etc. They have also bought wheat sowing, harvesting and other types of machines for agriculture practices in the name of the group, and all the members of the group can use it and can also lend it to other farmers of their village on lower/reasonable rates.

Amarjit Singh’s second most important profession is dairy farming, he has total 8 buffaloes and from the milk given by them, he makes Milk, Cottage Cheese, Khoya, Clarified Butter and Buttermilk. He sells the entire dairy products in his on-farm-market – Kisan Junction. One of the famous processed selling food items of his restaurant is Khoya Barfi which is made by using Khoya (dried whole milk or milk thickened by heating in an open iron) and Jaggery.

Things that are attracting more customers to his restaurants are deliciously fresh and nutritious food, open ventilation, proper cooling system and on road farm market. He has made the wall of the restaurants by using green net and bricks which ensure proper ventilation of air inside the restaurant.

After discussing the current trend and agriculture practices with him, he told us about his views-

“People have a very wrong mentality, they think that there is no profit in farming and they shouldn’t opt to farm as their livelihood. But this is not true. Wrong thoughts and views are induced in the mind of children like- only uneducated and illiterate people do farming and because of this, young generation look upon farming as a shabby or discreditable profession.
Nowadays, children are running behind Rs. 10,000 job and this thing have made them despondent from their life. Instead of brainwashing the kids against farming, it’s better to teach them the benefits and profits generated from farming. Agriculture is a diversified field and if a child is interested in choosing agriculture as his career then he can do wonders.”

Amarjit Singh took risk of quitting his job and starting farming, and because of his hard work and passion towards farming, today that risk has paid off well. The main motives of Amarjit Singh behind starting Kisan Junction Market Hub are:

• Helping farmers in selling their product through their shop

• Growing fresh and chemical free vegetables and fruits

• Providing fresh, original and natural food products to the customers

• Use fresh produce in the restaurant and offer healthy and fresh meal to the customers

• Guide farmers to process, do branding and market their produce themselves

Well, this is not the end, he also provides Institutional training for IAS probationers and the director also visited his farm. His future plan is to expand his on-road-farm market business and make other farmers aware that what benefits and profits they can earn from doing farming and how. He always welcomes every farmer that comes to him to get help in the field of agriculture.

Message by Amarjit Singh
“Farming sector is going through major difficulties and farmers always talk about his rights, not his responsibilities. The government is not going to come forward and help farmer every time. Farmer has to take the initiative and help himself. PAU have 6 months training program, in which a farmer is trained from the beginning of land preparation to sowing to marketing the product. So, from now on, the farmer has to take responsibility on their own shoulders if they want to earn a good livelihood from agriculture.”

Maninderjit Kaur

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How A Woman’s Fascination towards Creativity Led Her to Be a Successful Entrepreneur

It is said that, when you have the passion, then take the action and magic will happen. Well, this is a very true saying. A woman with the same attitude, followed her passion and today she is running a successful business.

Maninderjeet Kaur – a usual woman who always was fascinated with the creative handwork from her childhood, and later on, in her teenage, stitching and embroidery became her hobby. As her passion for creativity and her hobby grew more steadily, it made her feel like she should learn this skill professionally, and this ultimately led her to pursue Diploma in Stitching after her education (10th passed).

After marriage, generally, women think about spending a good time with their better half, getting settled with their family responsibilities and spending time with their kids. But this was not the case with Maninderjeet Kaur. It is not that, she hasn’t fulfilled her responsibilities, but at the same time, she also gave equal importance to her interest also. Currently, she is living happily with her family in Zirakpur and also running her business.

Twenty years ago Maninderjeet Kaur started Maninder Silayi Center and later on gave a label name to her business called Kohinoor, which today has prospered to a very successful business cum workshop. And to reach every big thing you have to start from small. Maninderjeet Kaur started by teaching stitching and embroidery to few girls at her home. Soon, she got recognized in the locality and many women and girls started visiting her for tailoring lessons. Finally, her degree came to work, she rented an area where she started giving tailoring lessons. She taught her students to stitch designer suits, bed sheets, pillow covers, kitchen cloth bag, grocery shopping bag, mats and many more things. Today there are total 60 girls under her, some of them are trainers and the rest are students who are still learning.

In her stitching centre, she has 15 stitching machines from which she teaches around 10 courses- stitching, fashion stitching, quilt making, bed sheet making, painting, embroidery (machine/handmade both), cooking, and different types of bag stitching. Her tailoring centre and classes are so popular that even educated women who are working as a doctor, engineer, and nurse take out time from their busy schedule to learn from her. Usually, she charges Rs. 500 for stitching course and 600 to 1000 for painting course to normal students. But sometimes she doesn’t charge to girls and women who are from a weak financial background and don’t have enough money to pay for the course. Moreover, she provides stitching material from her side to them, so that they can learn the skill and earn for themselves.

In the beginning, when she started her business, her quality work bring her a good customer (a shop in Chandigarh called VIVCO) and she partnered with them. She purchases clothes in bulk from VIVCO, wash them, make different items from it like bed sheets, pillow covers, bags, suits in her workshop and send all those products to VIVCO so that they can further sell it in the market. This whole process was generating good profit to her business. But around three years ago, in 2014, VIVCO closed their business, and it impacted Maninderjeet Kaur’s business severely. Till then she is facing hindrances in running her business smoothly because she doesn’t have a proper commercial platform to sell her workshop produce in the market. Despite all these hardships she never felt demotivated, and even today is she gets any opportunity or chance, she actively participate in it and gives her 100%.

Today Maninderjeet Kaur is in her mid-60s, but her inner passion has not diminished yet. She still teaches her student with full of energy and enthusiasm. According to her, she is still growing and learning which is helping her to add more products to expand her business. She attends every type of exhibition or event to make her brand more popular and gain the ideal audience.

Maninderjeet Kaur has been stitching clothes and doing embroidery since her teenage but never had she thought that this would someday turn into a full-fledged business for her. She is tailoring her way to success and the identity she has earned today is because of her zeal to continue her interest. For now, she is focusing on improving her revenues to maximize the profit and also to take her business on greater heights.

Message by Maninderjeet Kaur
“A woman should never suppress her skills and interest because of other reasons. Because those skills and interest can help her earn livelihood tomorrow in difficult times. Moreover knowing an additional skill is never a disadvantage, sometime in future that skill will definitely come to work. And whenever you get the opportunity, never miss it and always take advantage of it.”